155mm Canon on MBT

Well ofcourse they still have a way to go but looking at the matter of things now... it is a miracle they managed to develop the system into that "small" scale so fast. I know they actually had experience from the research in the early 90s, but still an impressive feat.

Flanky wrote:Well ofcourse they still have a way to go but looking at the matter of things now... it is a miracle they managed to develop the system into that "small" scale so fast. I know they actually had experience from the research in the early 90s, but still an impressive feat.

Afaik its not that difficult to build small scale railgun/ coilgun , its amateur stuff you can google intstructions and ebay ots capacitors, magnets, etc. Whats really difficult is scaling it up, ie what the us navy is trying to do, at the same time making it militarily useful(not just one shot, storable on vehicles etc.).

Anyway, for tactical ranges, EM guns may not be the best option in the near future as you dont really need more than 3km/s muzzle velocities. Hybrid solid propellant electrothermal-chemical guns could easily provide those muzzle velocities and not only that, they are achievable even with today tech.. Honestly, I dont know why the Russians arent as serious as the west with this tech. This is the most conservative of EM related gun tech, the only way you can be more conservative would be to go with a 155/152 mm conventional gun(and introduce new logistics for this new calibre as opposed to reusing 125 mm and infusing some EM tech.)

As I have mentioned previously there is internal ballistics, exterior ballistics, and terminal ballistics.

Three huge areas where you can improve things to make a system better.

Internal ballistics is what is going on in the barrel... more powerful propellents, higher pressure gun barrels, new autoloaders that allow longer projectiles... that sort of thing.

Exterior ballistics includes improved lighter sabot design that falls away rapidly and leaves most of the energy with the projectile. Aerodynamics and any scramjet engine would also be part of exterior ballistics which is concerned with the flight of the projectile from the muzzle to the target.

And terminal ballistics includes new materials and design structures to improve penetration performance on target.

_________________“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Afaik its not that difficult to build small scale railgun/ coilgun , its amateur stuff you can google intstructions and ebay ots capacitors, magnets, etc. Whats really difficult is scaling it up, ie what the us navy is trying to do, at the same time making it militarily useful(not just one shot, storable on vehicles etc.).

I really don't want to undermine the work of hobbyists, but many times their work is just a "proof of concept" and not a product with serious field testing in mind and eventual true military use. And no the usual work on developing a product is to make a proof of concept which tends to be oversimplified on which the physical laws/rules are tested to confirm the theory, then to move on to work on somehow smaller but still large prototype and after that is tested, deployed and significant experience has been collected by its users, feedback is gathered and process of technological miniaturization is jumpstarted. This is especially true in the case of electronic devices group of products which the railgun is undeniably part of.

Anyway, for tactical ranges, EM guns may not be the best option in the near future as you dont really need more than 3km/s muzzle velocities.

Can you really say that when we are aproaching an era where missiles would fly hypersonic speeds? There will be a need to develop a defensive measures against such a threat. This technology might potentially be one of the options because although energy beam weapons could be fast, but the time frame available to destroy such a missile might not be enough to inflict sufficient damage to knock it out.

Keep in mind that lighter projectiles will lose velocity much faster than heavier ones, and that aerodynamic shape will greatly influence performance at extended distances... fortunately aerodynamic shape often = good penetration shape.

Other aspects of changing to a larger calibre include heavier ammo, reduced ammo capacity for a given volume and reduced reloading/handling speed for the ammo.

_________________“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

I must say I am kinda liking the idea of a 155mm gun. With modern materialsand tech.(hybrid ETC.) it would do the job until EM based guns are introduced.Hmm, now that I have thought about it, EM elements are easier to implementw/ a bigger gun, and bigger guns are naturally more powerful thanequivalents w. abt same level of sophistication. Not only that, most targets will require just one hit with 155 ammo, and the FCS will be great and ammo guided anyway that lesser ammo. count doesnt matter much.

Came across this pic on Paralay - ignoring the awful 'shopping, is this a real image of a Object 477A prototype? To this time, I've only ever seen horrid blurry images of the 477A1 Nota protype, and clearer images of what looks like a partially dismantled unit.